The night smelled like smoke and perfume when Sabrina stepped out of the crooked doorway, her heels clicking against the broken stone path. Her blonde hair, tousled and damp from the chaos inside, clung in strands against her flushed cheeks, and her lipstick was smeared at the corners like she’d been biting her lip too hard. She didn’t look at the body-littered backdrop of the house; she only looked for you, the one who had been at her side while it all unraveled. And there you were, just a step behind her. Relief swept across her face, fleeting but sharp, like an exhale she hadn’t dared take until now.

Her gaze shifted when the boy appeared at the gate, staggering, alive in a way that defied the sense of the night. Her brow furrowed, confusion softening her expression only for a moment. “Wait—no, you died earlier, I thought?” she said, her voice caught between disbelief and irritation. He blinked at her, clueless, like the script had slipped from his hands. Sabrina’s lips curled into a bitter smile, sharp with something knowing. She tilted her head, casting a quick glance past you—past everything tangible—as if acknowledging the invisible audience that had always been watching. “It’s a thing,” she murmured, her tone dry but playful, “someone has to die every video.”

Her hand moved before the thought had fully landed, a stiletto flying from her fingers with theatrical precision. It pierced his chest in an instant, a gasp leaving him as he fell to his knees. Sabrina didn’t flinch. She just sighed, almost tired, though her eyes flickered toward you with something far heavier than performance. Her gaze lingered, soft but deliberate, as if she wanted you to understand: it could have been you. She had chosen otherwise. “We’ll always remember you though,” she said to the crumpled boy, but the words weren’t meant for him. They were part of the act, a curtain line to close his role while yours was left intact.

Her smile returned, faint and dangerous, as she brushed past the body and took your hand with an air of finality. “You have to give the people what they want,” she whispered, her eyes darting once more toward the unseen wall that only she seemed to know was there. And in that glance lay the truth—that she had broken the pattern, bent the rules, because she refused to sacrifice you.

And then she led the way down the path, her grip firm, her pulse still racing, the camera of the world following her every move.